


chicken noodle soup confessions

by everchanginginks



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Deputy Derek Hale, Deputy Stiles Stilinski, Fluff, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21804217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everchanginginks/pseuds/everchanginginks
Summary: Stiles is home from work with a bad case of the cold. Derek just wants to take care of him, but worries that his gesture of affection will reveal how much he's crushing on his co-worker.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 24
Kudos: 289
Collections: The Sterek Secret Santa - Edition 2019





	chicken noodle soup confessions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HappyJuicyfruit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyJuicyfruit/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, happyjuicyfruit! I hope you enjoy this gift! 
> 
> Thank you to Thumper and Sara for helping me <3

Derek nearly chickens out about five times before he even reaches Stiles’ building. The plastic bag in his hand, the one containing far too many Tupperwares filled with any and all comfort foods he could think of, feels too heavy, like he’s constantly off kilter. 

He swallows hard. Ugh, fuck, he knows he’s overdone it. Stiles will see straight through him and this chicken noodle soup smelling, over the top gesture of affection. He’s too smart not to and then Derek won’t be able to deny it. Jesus, he should just go home. Has his uniform always felt this constricting? He should’ve changed after his shift, but he had hurried over like an idiot.

He’s just about to step away from the door to scurry back home, when one of Stiles’ neighbors comes hurrying down the staircase. She flings the door open, obviously heading somewhere in a hurry, but stops to hold it open for him. 

“Here you go, deputy!” she exclaims.

He catches it on pure reflex, grunting out a stilted thank you. Cursed  _ youths  _ with their decent upbringing. She smiles politely before bustling down the street, heading towards a group of other  _ youths  _ that are waiting for her. It’s their concerned looks, as he just keeps standing there like a goddamn weirdo, that jolts him into motion and to cross the threshold. 

Could he successfully hide just inside the door until they’re gone? He glances up the stairs. Stiles’ apartment is on the second floor. Derek has never been over on his own before, it has always been in the company of their co-workers from the station. Derek sighs and slumps against the wall. He’s so close. He should just… he should just do it. Hand over the dumb Tupperwares containing food that he spent hours on, like a lovestruck fool, and face whatever misery comes next. Stiles will be nice about it at least.

Defeated, Derek drags himself up the stairs to Stiles’ door. The doorbell is broken, has been for weeks now, so Derek takes a deep breath and knocks.

There’s a thud from behind the door, a low muttering like a curse and a shuffling sound of fabric against the floorboards. The lock is turned and the door opens, but only by an inch. A puffy, hazel eye appears in the opening.

“Noooo…! Go away, I’m disgusting and dying!” Stiles whines at the sight of his guest. His voice is hoarse and thick, like he can’t breathe through his nose. 

The eye roll is automatic.

“The sheriff said that you had a cold. I doubt that you’re dying,” Derek replies drily and trying to ignore his thudding heart.

Stiles gasps, clearly offended.

“Excuse  _ you,  _ I-... is that food?”

Derek lifts the plastic bag.

“Yes?”

The eye narrows and looks at the raised bag in vary contemplation. After what must be at least a whole minute of absolute silence, the door is flung open completely.

“Very well. You may enter.”

Derek can’t help letting his eyes roam over Stiles’ body. He’s wearing gray, woollen socks and Derek can spot the hem of a pair of worn-looking Star Wars pyjama pants beneath the frankly monstrous collection of blankets currently wrapped and draped over Stiles’ frame. The tip of his nose and cheeks are a blossoming, feverish red, his eyes heavy and tired. A couple of matted strands of hair peek out of his blanket scarf.

“Don’t look at me,” Stiles orders with a dramatic sniff of his runny nose. “I’m hideous.”

Derek tries to tamp down on his amusement, to control the twitching in the corners of his mouth. He doubts that he could ever consider Stiles hideous.

“I’ve seen worse,” he replies and steps into the apartment, follows Stiles’ shuffling form into the small kitchen.

“Don’t tell me my dad sent you,” Stiles says. “You can’t let him boss you around like that.”

“He’s literally my boss, Stiles,” Derek replies, placing the plastic bag carefully on the kitchen counter. “But no.”

Stiles pauses, for a millisecond or two, as he tries to glance into the plastic bag without unravelling his hands from his blanket cocoon. 

“No? As in he didn’t send you?”

Derek nods.

“As in you _ willingly _ stepped into this biohazard, of  _ your own free will _ , like an absolute  _ madman?” _

Derek raises his eyebrows.

“I’ve got a strong immune system.”

Stiles snorts with derision.

“Famous last words, Deputy Hale, famous last words. Now stop chattering and feed me.”

There’s five Tupperware containers in the plastic bag and Derek carefully lifts them out of it. The first contains chicken noodle soup, which garners an excited  _ ooh _ from Stiles, the second mac and cheese ( _ aah!) _ , chili sin carne ( _ ooh!),  _ tomato soup with croutons  _ (are you going to make that noise for all of them?)  _ and mashed potatoes, meatballs and gravy. The last thing Derek pulls out of the bag is a tub of Ben & Jerry’s. It makes Stiles  _ ooh  _ extra loudly, and he shoots out a hand to grab for it.

“Karamel Sutra, huh? The kinky ice-cream. I can get into that.”

Derek refuses to blush.  _ Refuses.  _

“After dinner,” he replies and snatches the tub from Stiles’ hands. 

The unintended innuendo makes Stiles waggle his eyebrows… and then promptly get a hard-hitting coughing fit that colors his face bright red. Derek nudges him towards the living room.

“Go sit down. I’ll heat something up for you.”

Stiles makes a noise, which Derek thinks is supposed to be a thanks, and follows orders. He disappears through the doorway into the living room, supposedly to crash on the couch, and Derek rummages through the cabinets to find a bowl for the chicken noodle soup. He pours up a generous serving and sticks it into the microwave. While waiting for the food to heat, he fills up a glass of water and places the tub of ice-cream in the freezer for the moment.. He’s sure that Stiles will want some later. 

The living room is small and cramped, with a mustard yellow couch that’s far too large for the space. The walls are lined with bookshelves filled with obscure titles, movies and games. There’s a modest flat screen mounted to the only free space left on the walls, and beneath it every console known to man. There’s no Stiles though. Derek places the steaming bowl of soup and the glass of water on the stained coffee table and is just about to call out that dinner is served, when Stiles comes out of his bedroom, carrying a bundle of soft looking clothes. He tosses them at Derek, who catches them reflexively. He raises his eyebrows in question.

“So you can get out of that uniform,” Stiles explains. “Like, don’t get me wrong, you pull it off, but I thought you might want to get more comforta-...” Stiles’ eyes has trailed to the single bowl of soup on the coffee table. “Oh. I thought you were staying.”

Derek hadn’t planned to. Hadn’t dared to assume, or even hoped. However, Stiles looks disappointed. It awakens the butterflies.

“I can stay,” he finds himself saying and Stiles looks up from the table at him again. “I’ll just… go change.”

The smile on Stiles’ lips has the butterflies fluttering like mad. Tamping down on whatever impulsive, ill-advised confession threatening to spill over his lips, he clutches the clothes closer to his chest and makes his way into the bathroom to change. 

The bathroom is as barebones as a bachelor pad could possibly get, a little Softsoap dispenser next to the sink, and a hand towel that has seen better days. Eerily reminiscent of his own bathroom. He starts pulling off his uniform, piece by piece, and carefully folds it into a pile. It’s a heady sensation, being this unclothed so close to Stiles, to know that it’s merely a flimsy door between them. Trying to shake off his nerves, he pulls up the clothes Stiles had given him.

Okay, Stiles must have done this on purpose.

Stiles is by no means a small man, albeit not as broad as Derek. Still, Derek knows that there are far larger clothes hiding in Stiles’ dresser than what he’s been given. The pyjama pants, while soft, fit him more or less like a second skin and leaves absolutely nothing,  _ nothing,  _ to the imagination. The shirt, a well worn item with R2D2 on the front, barely reaches below the waist and squeezes tight around his biceps. 

He looks downright indecent. This will not work. But what choice does he have? He’d rather not slip into his uniform again. Instead he chooses to carry it, like a well-placed shield between Stiles and his on-display junk as he exits the bathroom. 

Stiles has curled up on the couch with the glass of water Derek had poured for him. He looks up at the sound of the door opening, takes one look at Derek and then promptly sprays out the large gulp of water in his mouth. He slaps his hand over his lips, his eyes aghast and thrilled all at once.

“You’re an asshole,” Derek says as he carefully shuffles over to the couch. “Gimme one of those blankets.”

“I think you mean genius,” Stiles replies, looking far too smug while he magnanimously hands over one of the many blankets draped over his shoulders. 

Once he’s sure that his crotch is sufficiently covered by the blanket, Derek puts away his folded uniform. There’s another bowl of chicken noodle soup on the coffee table and Stiles nudges it slightly in Derek’s direction. 

“You must be hungry too, if you just got off shift,” Stiles says. 

Derek grunts out a thank you and settles back into the couch with his bowl. Stiles must have waited for him before starting to eat himself, because he only reaches for his bowl when Derek does. At his first spoonful he lets out an appreciative sound.

“Wow, this is  _ not  _ the canned stuff.”

There are several ways he could play this, Derek supposes. He could feign innocence. He could lie. Just say that it’s fancy canned stuff. Could say that they’re leftovers from when his family came over the other day. He could say anything except the fact that he spent every waking hour after his shift last night with cooking for Stiles. 

“I like cooking,” he mutters into his bowl, an admission even if it’s a quiet one.

Stiles is staring, he can feel it. He can feel the cogs turning in Stiles’ brain, can see the puzzle he’s rapidly putting together, just like Derek had predicted. Derek swallows down a far too large bite that nearly wedges itself into his already thick throat.

“It’s really good,” Stiles replies and Derek doesn’t know if he’s relieved or disappointed, if the pity, if the option of denial is welcomed or if it’s just another nail in the coffin of Derek’s hope.

He doesn’t know what face he’s making down at his bowl of chicken noodle soup, but it’s apparently something that jolts Stiles into action because it has him scooting closer, nearly spilling his bowl of soup all over the mustard yellow couch. He places it on the coffee table.

“I mean, it’s  _ really  _ good, and I,” he starts, eager, urgent. “I’m just… I’m thinking about how you came here, like a fool, to willingly catch a cold-”

“I told you I have a good immune system,” Derek interrupts feebly, heart beating faster, but Stiles barrels on.

“-and you’ve cooked food for a small army and you squeezed into my stupid pyjamas and… for me. You did it for me. And I think too much, I know I do, it’s like my  _ thing,  _ and I might be delusional, but does it  _ mean  _ anything or am I just an idiot-”

“You’re an idiot,” Derek blurts, a little too loudly in the cramped space and it makes Stiles swallow the next wave of words and visibly deflate. Derek takes a shuddering breath and puts his bowl away, steels himself. “But I like you anyway.”

He hopes he never forgets the intensifying shade of Stiles’ fever red cheeks or the hopeful curve of his mouth. He’s sure he’ll never forget what Stiles says next.

“You’re kind of a dick. But I like you anyway.”

Stiles’ hand his too hot as it sneaks into his, his palm clammy, but Derek squeezes it back anyway. Stiles leans closer still, bumps their shoulders together. Derek doesn’t try to tamp down on his smile this time.

**Author's Note:**

> It takes Stiles approximately twelve seconds to ask to see Derek's pyjama clad dick. Derek shoves him off the couch.


End file.
